A prior art system for holding a quartz oscillator is the wire support type in which headed holding wires are secured to a quartz blank perpendicular to the plane of the blank. The other ends of the holding wires are secured to support posts which project up from a base on opposite sides of the quartz blank. Solder balls are positioned on the holding wires to adjust the effective length of the holding wires to the frequency of the oscillator. The positional adjustment of the solder balls must be performed for all of the holding wires. This is a very delicate, difficult and time-consuming operation. Moreover, if the effective length of the holding wire is made small, the heating of the solder balls to adjust their position may result in melting the solder which joins the holding wire to the quartz blank.
In the case of a GT cut quartz oscillator, adjustment of the frequency and temperature characteristic of the oscillator can be effected by polishing the longer and shorter side edges of the quartz blank. Usually these adjustments need to be carried out in the finally assembled state of the oscillator with the oscillator electrically connected so that the frequency and the temperature coefficient can be measured. With the prior art wire support type oscillator it requires great skill and care to polish the side surfaces without bending the holding wires. It is therefore common practice to detach the holding wires from the supporting posts each time to perform the polishing. This involves many inconveniences and is a time-consuming operation.
A further disadvantage of the prior art construction is that since the holding wires are normal to the plane of the quartz blank, a considerable amount of space is unavoidably occupied by the assembly comprised in the quartz blank, holding wires and supporting posts. This limits the miniaturization of the oscillator in the thickness direction of the quartz blank.